There was a deer-lick on our camp-ground there at Bridge Creek, and
during the night deer came down and strayed through the camp. One of the
guides saw a black bear also. We saw nothing. Some day I shall write an
article called: "Wild Animals I Have Missed."
We had made fourteen miles the first day, with a late start. It was not
bad, but the next day we determined to do better. At five o'clock we
were up, and at five-thirty tents were down and breakfast under way. We
had had a visitor the night before--that curious anomaly, a young
hermit. He had been a very well-known pugilist in the light-weight class
and, his health failing, he had sought the wilderness. There he had
lived for seven years alone.
We asked him if he never cared to see people. But he replied that trees
were all the company he wanted. Deer came and browsed around his tiny
shack there in the woods. All the trout he could use played in his front
garden. He had a dog and a horse, and he wanted nothing else. He came to
see us off the next morning, and I think we amused him. We seemed to
need so much.
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